


I have made mistakes

by thedarkstrangeson



Series: Fall apart, you'll be alright [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood Imagery, Canon Compliant to a Point, Character Study, Doomsday went a little differently, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Genocide, Knives, Major character death - Freeform, Non-Graphic Violence, References to Canon, Sad Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Swords, Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, no proofreading we die like ranboo's infinite canon lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedarkstrangeson/pseuds/thedarkstrangeson
Summary: What Techno didn’t see, drowning under the red heat of it all, was the withers, still descending.He didn’t hear the explosions, too distant from him to be of a worry.He only begins to know now, as the never-ending rain washes over him, how much he had lost.ORIt’s Doomsday, and things didn’t go the way you know them to have gone. Techno had a family, and they stood behind him (mostly). L’manberg was wholly unprepared, and yet their win was not assured. Dream was nowhere to be found. Techno had everything to lose, and at the end, it rained.ORDoomsday looks different this time huh
Relationships: Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: Fall apart, you'll be alright [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161101
Comments: 9
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very sad Technoblade character study. Enjoy the pain :)
> 
> (Title is a reference to "I Have Made Mistakes," by the Oh Hellos. Highly reccomended.)

Techno is alone, again.

The rain comes down, settles into his cloak and the cold into his bones. A stream of water trickles past his ear and down his neck. He doesn’t shiver. 

In all this cold, the ground is still warm. The explosions left their mark, and the nether fog that the withers dragged into existence hangs low to the ground, hot, dry, swirling gray dust. The rain will clear it out, soon enough.

He can’t make himself look up. 

He can see the water flowing down the hillside before him (it was flat here, once) and it runs brown, then red, then clear. What little dirt was left was quickly swept away by this unending rain, and now he kneels on bare rock, soul soaked through.

It has never been this hard to look up, before.

Usually after a fight things become bearable again. The voices calm, slightly anyway, and he takes it all in before pushing it away. Or the rush of sword-thrusts carry him home, eyes still wide with adrenaline. But the voices are silent. And he can’t look up. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t see it. That’s the problem, you see. It’s all on repeat, endless loop, worse than the jukebox when To—

The same songs would always be played, over and over again. And it is like that, now.

He moves his hand towards his sword. It’s been lying by his side, washed clean by the rain, up to what is uncovered at least. There’s a gem in the hilt, a blu—

There’s a diamond in the hilt and it glints with something he doesn’t understand. He tries to pick it up, but it is heavy, so so very heavy, and there’s something on top of it, that’s why he couldn’t see the blade of it, there are feath—

There is nothing, he can pull up his sword and he can put it away and he can head home to see what needs to be made for dinner. He can stand despite this weight in his lap and he can walk away and he can be okay.

But he doesn’t. Because he can’t look up. 

Instead, he remembers.

It must have been yesterday when all this started, or maybe only this morning. Or, gods, maybe it started all those years ago when he stepped through that portal. Or before then, when the blood covered the walls and the floor and seeped into his lungs. Was that when the voices first came to him? Or maybe they were always there, and the blood came because the voices called it.

He was so, so small, once.

He is glad that he is no longer that small. He wants to be that small again. He wants to be feared. He wants to be held.

Techno makes up his mind that the voices must have always been there because that's what brought the Orphans to his home, his first Home. But he never seemed to die. Not then, not ever. The arrows only grazed.

He remembers wandering for a long time, remembers stepping through a shimmering purple curtain to another place, remembers the magic draining out of the hollow obsidian frame on the other side, remembers being trapped. He was alone, then. Until there was warmth, and being held, and a face he can’t seem to place with something heavy wrapped around him. He asks the voices whose face that was and they don’t answer. It feels empty behind him, around him. He is more alone than he had ever been. 

There was more after that, probably. There must have been time in there for him to get strong, for him to make this name for himself to bear. Time, maybe, to play with two  ~~ Orphans ~~ humans about his size. They called themselves humans. Don’t most of the people in this place call themselves that? It was different, on the other side of the portal. He thinks it was different, anyway. It’s hard to remember back before the blood closed over his eyes. 

But there were two boys. The brown-haired one was always singing. He had this yellow notebook full of words. It took a long time before he was able to understand the boy’s scribbling, but when he learned the Orphan’s letters he saw that they held feelings. The ink spilled over his hands like blood one day and he couldn’t stop shaking.

There was another boy, younger, louder, his blue eyes bright with expectations. He went out hunting with Dad one day and—

Dad. The face from before was Dad. Probably. Gods, it's just so hard to remember.

With the three of them, he finally got stronger. The voices weren’t so bad, in those years. The first blood must have sated them for long enough for him to grow up. They mostly asked for deer, or foodstuffs. Until they wanted more. 

Dad started to move them all more often, never staying in one place for more than a few months, a few weeks, a few days. He got quite good at using elytra, once they started moving more often. He would glide in Dad’s wake and the others would be beside him and that was Home enough. They were running from something, maybe.

Once, they made the mistake of stopping in a small village to restock. The locals saw him for what he was, and their leader tried to force his Home away from their place. Techno’s eyes filled with blood for a second time. The voices screamed, thousands upon thousands of them, and when he could finally breathe again there wasn’t a village anymore. 

He saw fear in his brothers’ eyes.

Dad only looked sad.

He wanted to be small again. He wanted to be feared. He was feared, and he wanted to be held. He needed to be alone.

He doesn’t think he saw much of Dad after that, not for a long time. He walked out into the night with a sword and some food, and tried to get as far from that Home as possible. He never seemed to die, after all.

He was alone for a long time after that.

There was a time when he tried to return to his first Home, through that purple curtain. But it was not the same. Words fell heavy from his tongue, mangled beyond understanding. He had talked like them, once, had the name to prove it, even grossly mistranslated as it was. But he couldn't find the words. Besides, all that was left to his people was ruins now. The Orphans had taken it all. The first came before he was born, trapped when the purple curtain closed behind him as it had done to Techno. When the nether-folk found him they helped him get Home. They understood that being orphaned from one's Home was unbearable. And then, the Orphan repaid their generosity tenfold in blood. He came back with more and more of them until there were only ruins. Maybe it was for the better that the nether rejected Techno. There was nothing there for him anyway.

After returning from that trip, he remembers trying to stop for a while. There was a floating city in the sky, and he gave the voices the fruits of the earth, more and more to overwhelm them and carve out a moment of peace for himself. It never quite worked, but those sweet years sit clearest in his memories. He loved no one enough to be blinded by their loss.

He knows that some call took him from the farming, but who that call belonged to he can only guess. His brothers, likely, stepping from his past like nightmare apparitions. He never could deny them when they asked. He doesn’t think that they understood what the voices did to him. 

A red haze smothers the months between the call and this moment. He knows that the voices yelled for many things, many times. He knows that bad things happened. The faceless man was there. His brothers were there, until they weren’t. His brothers changed. He never changed. He should have died many times over, but he never could seem to die. And now, the stone has gone cold under his knees but the rain won’t stop. Something heavy is held in his lap and he’s stopped trying to lift his sword and he has this horrible dread that he knows what he is holding, and why everything is so empty.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's rewind, boys.

Techno woke up that morning the same way he always did, getting out of bed quickly to shake off the sleep, not letting himself dwell too long on it, else the voices set in. Not that that did much good today, they were already at it, whispering their incoherent words in slithering echoes with a single thread spun through it all. _Withers._ He carefully acknowledged them, _yes, that is today, we will do away with the government today, please calm_ , but they buzzed louder at the agreement. He sighed, tried to push them back a little further, and resolved to get on with it.

The potions had been brewed well in advance of this day, but he still went down the rows to check for breaks, testing a few for the familiar tang of magic. Satisfied, he stepped out the door to give Carl a rub-down. He wouldn’t be taking him along on this, too dangerous by far, but the horse always got his grooming at this hour. Even a war couldn’t change that. Techno wondered, briefly, if L’manberg would be prepared for them. Whether that would make it better or not. But by then it was a little lighter outside, so he headed upstairs to start breakfast.

He stirred together something simple, a carrot stew with some mutton leftovers. It was hearty enough, for the day's work. Techno never believed in making fancy things for big days. It was better, easier, if the routines stayed the same. This fight to come ought to mean nothing. It was what he had been preparing for for a long time, sure, but taking down tyranny like this was necessary. There ought to be nothing grand about it. Bring down the city, bring down the leaders that made it this way, and cripple any hope of a government reforming. Simple. After all they had done, they deserved it, right? The rhetorical question was a mistake, as he felt more than heard the bright static flare up behind his skull. _Death, death, they deserve it. Kill them all. Withers, withers, let it all wither away._ He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, just a moment, tensed up, before smoothing it all over, forcibly straightening up. He took a breath, made himself breathe again. It was time to wake Tommy. 

He stepped over to the landing and slid down two sets of ladders, boots settling with a soft thump on the floor of Tommy’s basement bedroom. He’d always insisted on it, for whatever reason. Techno guessed that he did appreciate keeping his room to himself, but still. This room had a chill that never quite went away. Tommy, for his part, was already blinking himself awake at the sound of Techno’s arrival. The kid seemed to be much more on edge these days. There was a time when he could sleep through anything. But that was a long time ago, now.

“Fuck, why so early Tech— oh.”

“It’s pronounced ‘Techno,’ but just get up. There’s food upstairs.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant!”

Techno chuckled quietly to himself, already halfway up the ladder.

“Sure, Tommy.”

Tommy sputtered something indignant about taking things seriously for once, but Techno was already focused on getting his own breakfast eaten. He ladled himself a bowl and sat down, a last morning in this place. Whatever the outcome, he couldn’t imagine sticking around. Maybe there’d be one more morning after this, before he headed out, but that was it. His time here was over. L’manberg would be razed to the ground, and its evil dispelled from the world. It was necessary. Eating slowly, Techno looked out the window, across the icy waste in front of him. It was snowing, fittingly in a way. Hopefully the rain over in L’manberg would keep Ghostbur inside for what was to come. _Not that he’d remember any of it anyway._ Still. It was better this way.

Soon, a knock came at the door. Techno tensed slightly, waiting for it to open to prove that it was who he thought it would be. Philza.

“Hullo, Phil.”

“Techno! Today is certainly going to be an interesting one, isn’t it?”

“It’s going to be so much better than that! I’ve been waiting for so, so long. They will finally learn. With this many withers? We are going to chunk-error their government.”

“They won’t know what hit them. This is going to be insane.” Phil laughed, in the bubbly way where it seems to take even him by surprise. Techno wondered, not for the first time, whether bringing Phil and Tommy with him to this fight was a good idea. It was always his goal, did he have to make it theirs too? They, they were the vulnerable ones. Technically, no one could prove Techno could survive what was to come. But he’d never seemed to be able to die before. Surely, this wouldn’t be any different.

“Morning, Tommy!” said Phil, as Tommy climbed up the last few rungs of the ladder into the living room. Techno turned to ladle him a bowl of the stew.

“Eyy Philza, how are you so awake right now?” Tommy smiled, an approximation of his usual grin, and his chair scraped loudly as he pulled it out. He cringed a little at the noise, but plopped down with an attempt at enthusiasm.

“Try to eat, you’ll need it.” Techno set the bowl in front of him, and tried to busy himself with cleaning up the morning’s cooking. He waited for the usual chatter to start back up from Tommy, but oddly nothing came. He paused another moment, hoping Philza would say something, but when he didn’t he sighed and looked back at Tommy. The kid was staring far too hard at his soup, his grip on his spoon white-knuckled. Techno sighed. “You okay?”

“Yup! Definitely, definitely doing very good, ready to uh… destroy L’manberg and governments and all that, definitely good.”

He was not okay.

“Tommy, I’ve said before that I’m going to do this no matter what. But you can sit this out. I…“ Techno rubbed at his temples, “I won’t think any less of you for it.”

“Oh.” Tommy seemed surprised at the last bit. “I just… don’t want Tubbo to die. Even after everything, I know it’s _insane_ , don’t look at me like that, but just promise me you won’t make it worse than it has to be?”

“If they are smart at all, they’ll run when things start to turn against them.” He couldn’t promise something like that. But for Tommy, he’d try. At least Tommy seemed satisfied with his non-answer.

“I don’t want to have to watch my country get destroyed.” _It’s not your country anymore,_ was what Techno wanted to say. _It hasn’t been your country since you were exiled, maybe not even since Schlatt took over._ But he didn’t.

“Stay, then. We’ll be back before dark.” _At least he wouldn’t die this way._ “Phil, are you sure you still want to do this?”

“They made me kill my son, Techno. I’m coming.”

“Well alright then.” He stood and strode quickly to the door. “We should get moving.” He tried to shrug off this almost-disappointment, but wasn’t quite successful. _It’s better if Tommy stays. One less person to lose._ So then why did it being just him and Phil feel so wrong?

He could feel the voices begin to swarm somewhere back there and knew that they wouldn’t wait much longer. He threw a last few potions into his bag and stepped into the snow; Phil would follow quickly enough. Techno walked towards the portal almost by rote— he’d made enough trips to feed the dogs that he knew all of the pitfalls on the way. The voices coalesced into a lurking static, snowflakes and whispers clouding his senses. There were footsteps behind him, and footsteps beside him. Phil’s voice joined the others, maybe making conversation, maybe talking about plans, maybe maybe maybe. His words couldn’t get past the voices. He should be happy to be on the way to the end of this war, on the way to what he had been trying to accomplish for so long now. But the voices droned on, muttered cries for blood, for withers, a few scattered mentions of _Tommy, Tommy;_ he tried to pick out Phil’s voice, he really did, but then all the voices started to sound like him and he gave up. The portal (the exit already? When had they even entered it?) would be up ahead soon, and then maybe they’d let him go as the fight grew closer. 

A hand on his shoulder.

“Are you with me, mate?”

_Phil._

“Should we get the dogs first?”

_Probably._

“Here, we should use some of that invis now.”

_Yeah._

“So, dogs first?”

 _I said yes—oh. I was doing that thing again._ He cleared his throat. “Yes. Dogs.”

“Good, let’s head through then.”

The portal swirled around them, and the nether’s familiar heat melted away in the cool rain. In front of them lay the community house (a twinge of surprise there. He almost expected it to be gone), and beyond it the path into L’manberg. Instead he dove quickly underneath it, finding the cramped passage into the sewer. He felt Phil drop in behind him, and set off quickly towards where the dogs had been kept. There was no time to waste. The longer they spent creeping around down here, the more likely it was that someone would discover them. This attack relied on surprise more than anything. They had to get the withers up before anyone had a chance to rally to fight them, that was the way to bring the nation tumbling down. It was necessary. It would have to work.

Techno found and uncovered the entrance to the dog room, and was once again in awe of how many he had accumulated.

“I think the hound army might be ready. This is going to be perfect,” said Techno.

“Oh yeah, just a little bit ready.” Phil couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer number of dogs in that room. 

“So, once we get up there, you’re going to do the withers. You’ve always been better than me at this magic stuff anyway. Also just… try not to get hurt. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

“I’ll take care of it. I trust you, Techno. Ready for the fight?”

“Aren’t I always?”

Something about that “I trust you” lingered in his mind, echoing softly. It meant a lot, maybe more than it should. He would not let Phil down, not after all this time. He just couldn’t. Like he said, it… wouldn’t end well.

Techno whistled sharply, hoping that the layers of stone above them would muffle it from their enemies. As one, the hound army rose. Now this, _this_ was going to be fun. The voices didn’t fade, but they did sharpen. Not just their words but everything, all his senses lit up in terrible clarity. He could hear Phil’s heartbeat beside him, and far above them the footsteps of his victims. They didn’t know it yet, but he was coming. _The Blade is here_. 

He is certain that he climbed up somehow, but all that he really remembers from the start of this battle is standing there, in the center of L’manberg. His dogs swirled around him, and he felt their howls rumble through his feet. _Gods, I haven’t felt this alive in weeks._

“HEY IDIOTS,” Techno laughed, knowing that here he had power, he was in control. “Where’s your army?”

Tubbo, of course, was the first to show up. He rubbed sleep from his eyes as he stepped out of his house, before stopping in shock.

“Oh _shit_ ,” said Tubbo. He fled quickly back inside, and Techno knew that he’d be calling in L’manberg’s forces. _Well, let them come. This will be glorious._

Soon, he sees them arriving. Eret, Quackity, Sapnap; everyone they had managed to unite to defend this place, all outfitted in their best gear, they descended into L’manberg. He heard their cries, of horror or just at the absurdity of his hound army, and it was like adrenaline straight into his veins. 

There was a moment of calm before everything changed. The rain, though it poured, felt cleansing in its coolness. The clouds hadn’t yet obscured the last of the sun, and the trees swayed gently in the wind. Then, Quackity took a swing at one of the dogs, and all hell broke loose. 

Techno waded into the fray, dogs surging forward before him. He pulled potions from his bag to quickly power them up, sending them into a frenzy after those who dared to attack. Finally, a real opponent appeared in front of him and he struck, lighting fast with a thrust there, spinning to parry someone behind him, then pushing forward, keeping his opponents off-balance, always moving. That clarity was still with him but the voices now hummed, beating a battle song in his skull, sending the thrill of the fight, of bloodlust through his limbs and heart. He could sense his wolves falling around him but it was no matter, he was _unstoppable_ . L’manberg was woefully unprepared, and he sliced through everyone who stood in his way like butter. Their armour cracked under his blows and they retreated, desperately trying to recoup. When he saw them flee to the Camarvan, he knew it was time. Techno fired a single, clear shot into the air, red and black sparks raining down over the nation. _The signal, Phil!_

The response was perfect. Almost immediately, he felt the red-hot nether smoke in his lungs, dragged from the other dimension, clinging to the summoned Withers. Somewhere, Phil laughed. The heat set his senses alight, and the voices sharpened his vision until he could see everything, every movement before they make it, every step to take to force them back one, two, a wither blast from behind and he's on to the next, sword swirling, shield-less and wild. He always figured that there’s no need to block if you just can’t get hit. Besides, he never could die. Techno takes cuts, but the dripping red lines mean nothing. The sting is only momentary, and all blood is blood for the blood god. The rain washed it from his skin quickly enough, and sizzled as it made contact with the many withers Phil had raised. The monsters did their jobs well, and efficiently, blasting into the ground and into those who dared to stay standing. 

Techno had one last moment of clarity as the explosions rained around him. In it, he saw the glint of a turtle shell helmet on the bridge. Dread began to creep in, but before he could act on it the voices surged, and a curtain of blood came down across his vision.

What he didn’t see, after that point, was Tommy’s eyes, locked on Tubbo. The president fought tooth and nail against the wither before him, but then a black dread loomed and Tommy did the only thing he could. He lept, drawing his sword as he fell, loping off one of the beast’s heads and turning to Tubbo behind him. The wither got off one dying shot and it struck horribly true, catching Tubbo squarely in the back. Tommy was there, unloading potions into the air around them, and yet it wasn’t enough. He caught Tubbo before he hit the ground, barely, but the boy was already gone.

What Techno didn’t see, drowning under the red heat of it all, was the withers, still descending.

He didn’t hear the explosions, too distant from him to be of a worry.

He only begins to know now, as the never-ending rain washes over him, how much he had lost.

There was just his sword and crossbow, teeth bared, eyes blinded, and the fight.

The fight.

It went on, and on and on and on, and the worst part, as his sword fell again and again, was that _they weren’t running._ In that moment, he was happy to kill them, of course, but still, the part of Techno that wasn’t entirely overrun by the battle song and blind justice wondered why they didn’t have the sense to save themselves. If they didn’t die by his blade, the withers would take them. There would be nothing left in this place; he would make certain of that. His memory of the battle swirled into a crimson blur, then, as he knelt, still unmoving, with the weight in his lap on this cooling rock.

Trying to remember seems fruitless until it isn’t and there he feels the memory crash in, the last coherent scene of the battle. The one whose face he couldn’t remember, Dad, _Phil_ turns in the air, face tear streaked and triumphant, his wings bruised and battered but beating, and there, Techno knew, if only for an instant, that they had won. 

And then the wither rose up behind him, and Techno brought his crossbow up far, far too slowly, and Phil fell.

He remembers, each thought like a knife to the chest, holding Philza. He remembers sheltering him with his body because the destruction never seemed to hurt him, it always steered just clear. He remembers the rattling gasps, the end, the end, the end of it all.

Techno looks down, and holds his father closer.

_Phil, what have I done?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, thank you for reading!
> 
> By putting this in here I might jynx it, but I have plans for another thing set in this version of smp history, let me know if you're interested in that! All I'll say is that Techno deserves some healing.
> 
> Edit: That fic has now begun! You can find the therapy roadtrip from hell as the next work in this series. Hope to see you there!


End file.
